Kingship in early Medieval India
by Sudip Narayan Maitra | 2015 | 67,940 words
This thesis is called: Kingship in early Medieval India: A comparative study of the Cholas and the Eastern Gangas. It represents a detailed empirical study of “kingship and polity” of two broad deltaic alluvial stretch of land on the “eastern coast”, namely ‘Mahanadi’ and ‘Kaveri’ delta. These were among the main centers of political and cultural a...
Part 18 - Protector Image (of the Mahanadi Delta and the Gangas)
The kings were often found eulogised as the protector and the maintainer of the dharma and establisher and maintainer of the varna and asrama system as its proper status. Right from the plates of Gopacandra almost all the dynastic rulers were spoken of these claimants. Nevertheless, the Bhaumakara king Subhakara I and II, despite being Bhddhists, were taken the pride of this act. The Nandodbhabas were also credited for these achievements.
The reference of Vedic sacrifices was got prominence in the inscriptions of the Sailodbhabas. The ruling aspirants of the Sailodbhaba dynasties were claimants of performing Asvamedha and Vajapeya sacrifices consistently. Apart from the Sailodbhabas, sacrifices like Asvamedha and Vajapeya, and especially the Srauta sacrifice does not appear as the significant component of the ideology of legitimizing the kingship in early medieval Orissa.